1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a guide wire well-suited to the medical field upon assisting a catheter navigate into a vascular tracts, urethra, somatic organs or placing a retainer at an aneurysm-forming lesion in a vascular system, and particularly concerns to a heat mold device and a method of making the guide wire by using the heat mold device.
2. Description of Prior Art
Upon implementing a therapeutical treatment, prior to using a catheter, it is necessary to firstly insert a guide wire into a blood vessel as a guide for the catheter. In general, the flexible guide wire has a metallic coiled wire made by winding a stainless steel, platinum, gold or tungsten (wolfram) line around a mandrel. The guide wire has a core wire made by a stainless steel metal or a carbon steel metal, and having a safety wire to prevent the metallic coiled wire from inadvertently being stretched. A distal end portion of the metallic coiled wire is arcuated to define a shape-forming configuration.
Into the metallic coiled wire, the core wire and the safety wire are inserted. The safety wire has both end portions fixedly secured to the corresponding ends of the metallic coiled wire. The core wire is progressively reduced at its diameter as approaching its distal end to form a tapered configuration. The rear end of the core wire is fixed to a rear end of the metallic coiled wire. The core wire terminates its distal end portion short of the shape-forming configuration to render the configuration pliable so as not to get the blood vessel injured.
Upon making the guide wire to have the shape-forming configuration, Japanese Patent No. 3300155 introduces to insert a distal end portion of a guide wire into a mold groove provided with an outer surface of a metallic mold body. After putting the metallic mold body into a heating furnace with a lid placed on the metallic mold body, the distal end portion of the guide wire is thermally treated to form it arcuate as the shape-forming configuration.
However, it is not sufficient to only place the lid on the metallic mold body because the lid may be subjected to the thermal deformation due to the thermal expansional difference between the lid and the metallic mold body. This causes to fall the lid and the guide wire off the metallic mold body, thus making it not possible to render the shape-forming configuration into high quality product.
Due to the physical strains and deformations based on the thermal expansional difference between the lid and the metallic mold body, the guide wire is susceptible at its shape-forming configuration to the deformation especially when the guide wire is small in diameter (e.g., less than 1.0 mm in outer diameter). The Japanese Patent No. 3300155 remains silent about diversifying the shape-forming configuration, while at the same time, efficiently producing a plurality of guide wires concurrently with the common metallic mold body.
Therefore, the invention is made to eliminate the above drawbacks to provide a heat mold device which is capable of forming a guide wire arcuate as a shape-forming configuration, and preventing a lid body from inadvertently falling off, and diversifying the shape-forming configuration, while at the same time, efficiently producing a plurality of guide wires concurrently with the common metallic mold body.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a method of making a guide wire capable to produce high quality ones with a high efficiency.